Mind you if i had the money guess i would have that many films :nod:

Using their 'compare' feature we apparently have 120 matching titles/editions - mainly 88/Arrow/Eureka stuff by the looks of it.

I've been fortunate to have disposable income to spend on shiny plastic discs and been able to take advantage of sales.

Went to see Eye in the Sky the other day. I was expecting an action thriller about drones with Jesse Pinkman uncovering a conspiracy and getting hunted down by Helen Mirren's cronies. What I got was two hours of administrative procedures as politicians argued about whether to bomb a house because a little girl was sat outside it selling bread. Every time there was a danger of something dramatic happening, someone said "I'll have to ask my boss if we can do this" and there was another massive round of waffling. Absolutely dire. Should've known really!

I scored this 4.5/5 :lol: I found it gripping with some excellent acting and direction.

WTTD easily the creepiest of these cough ;)

"Great, there goes the band!"

I love Welcome to the Dollhouse :lol:

It's still not quite up there with Happiness for me, but a great film nonetheless. :nod:

I bought Dark Horse on DVD ages ago and I haven't got around to watching that one yet, it looked great from the trailer and if it's as good as those 2 then I know I'm going to love it.

I also thought it was uniformly brilliant and incredibly tense.

I'm not an authority on the matter, but I imagine the reality of such situation would involve a lot of negotiating and high-level political meetings.

You'll have to let me know what it's like as I haven't seen it myself.

Just a daft random Q?

In films and real life you have baddies, gangsters, drug dealers who always come out with the old chestnut saying, im not scared of you
Well erm exscuse but yes you are if you wasnt then why do they hide behind s bevvy of people
Yes im aware why get youre hands dirty when other people can do it for you. So why say im not scared of you.
If you got into a fight in a night club you wouldnt say come on im not scared of you then click youre fingers and expect who youre with to kick arse for you would you?

Rented a couple of films.

Howl. A night train derails and the skeleton staff and passengers soon find themselves facing something far worse than endless delays - a rampaging werewolf on the track! This was a surprisingly decent and effective "base under siege" British horror for the most part, though I didn't like the ending.

Bone Tomahawk. When a criminal, a Sheriff's Deputy and the local female doctor are abducted from the town jail, seemingly by Indians, the town Sheriff conjures up a small posse, including the doctor's injured husband, to go after them - but is unaware of just how utterly savage and ferocious his enemy really is... Kurt Russell stars in this very effective Western thriller that turns into a horror flick. The mid-section is a little on the slow side, but it pays off in a shockingly brutal final act as the Sheriff and company find themselves outnumbered by a clan of brutal cannibalistic savages who might as well be alien monsters for all the humanity they possess. I really liked this!:)

Saint Ange (2004)

A ghostly tale set in the 50's at an orphanage in the French Alps.

I struggled to get to grips with Saint Ange, UK title, House of Voices. Despite some good performances from Virginie Ledoyen and Catriona McColl and added to some occasional striking imagery, the whole thing failed to grab me and i felt nothing other than slight interest at the best of times.

Director Pascal Laugier went on to direct the overrated Martyrs (2008) and the largely excellent The Tall Man (2012), but it's a wonder he managed anything at all following this almost plotless and frankly boring film.

Probably the worst new wave French horror i've seen and certainly the dullest.

Disappointing!

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BLUEBEARD PRC (1944)

A murderer is on the prowl in Paris and bodies of young girls have been found in the river. Suspition falls on puppeteer John Carradine....

For a low budget horror, PRC have put some effort in to this and it looks good.
John Carradine is great as the troubled puppeteer and the puppet show he puts on looks really great. A classic sweeping music score plays the entire 70mins.
The tunnels which the murderer sinks his victims in the river are pretty atmospheric but this is not really a horror film as such. Lasting only 1 hour 10mins, it does seem like the film is on for much longer. Worth checking out for John Carradine and the great puppet show.

Have you seen the Burton version, Daveboy?

I really rate that.

Me too. :nod:

I get their point, that all of this stuff is hard work and very political etc etc, but they made that point about ten minutes in and then kept hammering on at it. It takes them until the end of the film to take any action more complicated than "I'll ask someone more powerful than me". There are episodes of 24 that have dealt with similar issues in entertaining ways in half the time. I can take a film full of a chatter, too, but the film has no real characters either: "Grumpy woman", "Nice man", "Bad woman". The entire film could have filled five interesting minutes in a decent film with a proper budget, instead of being a cheapie shot in three or four rooms with actors paid for an afternoon each (followed by a weekend in a dusty village).

The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino.

A stagecoach thunders across the bleak snowy Wyoming wilderness. On board is bounty hunter John 'The Hangman' Ruth transporting his prisoner Daisy Domague to justice in the town of Red Rock. Sat upon a heap of corpses in the middle of the road is Major Marquis Warren. A rival bounty hunter also looking to get his catch to town after the elements claim his horse. Striking up an arrangement the two professionals share the carriage onward awhile before happening across a third traveller also struggling on foot in the harsh environment. Chris Mannix claims to be the new sherrif of Red Rock and manages to secure a ride aboard John Ruths stagecoach.
Unfortunately a ferocious blizzard forces the coach to stop at Minnies Haberdashery a remote trade post, where the men have no choice but to hole up til the storm passes.
Inside the trade post, we meet an odd assortment of travellers all with their own stories and agendas.
Tarantinos 9th feature is as ever a long drawn out indulgent affair, criticisms already levelled at this and at least his last two films. Its difficult to argue that point other than to say i enjoyed all three immensely and was never bored therefore i don't see how they can be overlong.
The Hateful Hate stars Kurt Russell doing his best John Wayne as John Ruth 'The Hangman' and Tarantino regular Samuel L.Jackson as Marquis Warren. Both are excellent in there own way even if Jackson is just playing his usual shouty self. Also in Minnies Haberdashery we get a brilliant turn from Tim Roth as the most English Englishman on earth, Michael Madsen as...well Michael Madsen. Bruce Dern as an old army general. Oh and credit where it really is due to a spectacular turn from Jennifer Jason Leigh as the prisoner Daisy Domague, foulmouthed, evil and hilarious in equal measure. I love snowy films, be it The Thing, The Shining or Corbuccis brilliant The Great Silence. And this is no different, basically a group of strangers trapped in a snowbound cabin in the middle of nowhere. Morricones marvellous score, more reminiscent of classic horrors like The Shining or Psycho combined with the setting works brilliantly to evoke a menacing mood and the opening scenes of the stagecoach passing an old gothic cross in the middle of the white wasteland do ever more to convince me that this isn't a western but a horror flick in disguise. I loved it but somehow i suspect I'll be the only one here to think that highly of it.
P.s.Jackie Brown is far too long.

Okay. I now want to see this. Asda here i come. :doh:

Can i recommend Day of the Outlaw if you like snowy westerns. For a Hollywood film it's grueling stuff.

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Oh and McCabe and Mrs. Miller too. That's a Tarantino western in all but name.

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I like all Quentin's films including Death proof. Loved Hateful 8.

For snowy westerns I also recommend The great silence


Attachment 178655

While i urge you to watch it, i bet you'll bloody hate it Dem![emoji38]
I think I'm one of the only people that actually thinks Tarantino is getting better and better.
Thanks for the recommendations.

Somehow i missed your post K. Yeah even Death Proof has some redemption but its easily Tarantino's worst film, ironic given its his shortest. The Great Silence is brilliant. While its set very early in what is generally considered the Western era The Revenant if you haven't seen it is absolutely stunning. To be honest my fondness for snowbound films isn't really limited to westerns (though it's somehow an interesting contrast to the usual tropes of the genre) The Thing, Let the Right One In, 30 Days of Night, Deadly Pursuit...
Even average films like The Grey are i think helped tremendously by the snowy environment.

Love him or hate him there no two ways about it the guy is 100% pure talented.
I loved all his film up to death proof which i wasnt over impressed with it
Inglorious bastards, still havent seen it and to be honest im not that interest to either, dont even ask me why im not sure myself :confused:
Django unchained didnt like it couldnt take to it, i think there something about the film where i think he tried to be to clever amd smug with himself about it, but cant pinpoint why, thought the film was to long winded and more of just a dialogue film than being a film, and there was something about dicaprio that i didnt think he was quite suited for the film or the part,
Hatefull eight havent watched yet but so looking forward to it tho.

You like Jackie Brown gag?

I really enjoyed the revenant, I also enjoyed the Grey. I think FARGO hasn't been mentioned yet!

Been a while since ive seen it but from what i remember yes i did.

Watched The Visitor and am glad i got it for a low price. Being a cult film fan i'm used to seeing the diamond in the rough, but basically this film is a sheet of sandpaper in the rough. Admittedly the girl is pretty creepy, but that's about it.

COUGH Bone Tomahawk is a western, this is just QT's usual aping of a genre...IMO!!


AANYway.....I also watched Charlie Chan & The Dlagon Queen (1981, Clive Donner)
When cocaine habits attack. Hollywood. You may hate them nowawdays for having no ideas....but this "film" is surely the epitome of the anything goes period. Literally jaw dropping in it's scattergun approach to it's subject. If it hadn't been for Brian Keith's hypochondriac copper, I would have given up after the title scene.

Bone Tomahawk (S. Craig Zahler, 2015)
Now this is more like it. Apart from some contemporary mores, this is a western (This I may have mentioned). Russell excels as the extremely civil Sheriff of Bright Hope, a town with only a few residents. Richard Jenkins nearly steals the film as the "back up" deputy, but it's Russell's show. Some genuine tension towards the climax had me on the edge of my seat.

BLUEBEARD PRC (1944)

Not seen that version. I see that it has Raquel Welch in it so it is my duty to check it out. ;)

It has a bevy of hot Euro totty in it. Raquel's the only one that doesn't strip for dastardly Richard Burton.

He probably thought to himself 'While the cats away...'

Not seen it myself but Google images tells me i need to get on that right away :)

:pound:

My Marvel superheroes revolution is well under way.

In chronological order.

Captain America The First Avenger (2011)

I've reviewed this previously and gave it a real hammering. It's safe to say my views have changed somewhat. Whilst nowhere near perfect, it didn't grate on me like that first viewing and featured some good character actors like Tommy Lee Jones, Neal McDonough, Stanley Tucci, Dominic Cooper and Toby Jones who made up for the wooden style of lead Chris Evans.

Story wise this is part WW2 action adventure and partly borrowed from Clint Eastwood's 2006 film Flags of Our Fathers in the need to create an American hero to inspire the war effort back home.

Agent Carter (2015)

Set four years after the events of The First Avenger, it's 1946 and Peggy Carter has left the military and is now a secretary for The Strategic Scientific Reserve. Dominic Cooper, reprising his role as Howard Stark, contacts Carter for help when he is declared wanted for treason.

Following a slowish start this first series comprising a mere 8 episodes picks up greatly. Hayley Atwell is again very good as Carter and one or two characters from Captain America reappear (i won't say who) and Stark's butler, Jarvis, wonderfully portrayed by James D'Arcy, appears on the scene. The second half of the series is terrific stuff and as good as any recent television i can think of.

Iron Man (2008)

After being held captive in an Afghan cave, a billionaire engineer creates a unique fully loaded suit of armor to fight evil.

Robert Downey Jr is excellent as billionaire industrialist playboy Tony Stark. Thankfully this opening film in The Avengers series stays close to home with the threat from Jeff Bridges and inside Stark Industries rather than some planet destroying super villain. Final fight aside this is more realistic than what is to come from the Marvel universe and with the introductions of SHIELD's Agent Coulson who pops up throughout, and Nick Fury in a post credits sequence sets the scene for what's to come.

I wasn't totally sure where to post this but as it's two films and a tv series i decided the films thread wins.

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THE DAM BUSTERS (1955)

Well, what can you say ?
Absolute classic film.
Guy Gibson's 617 Squadron are sent to destroy three Dams in Germany with the help of the new invention, the 'bouncing bomb'.

:first:

Fractured (2013)

For the most, set in the dark underbelly of New Orleans, the film is a story of a man (well played by Callum Blue) who wakes following a three year coma. However his attempts at a normal life are thwarted by disturbingly horrific visions which force him to go back to his deep south roots and confront his past.

Fractured is a dark noir-like thriller as if penned by Clive Barker. Although the pace is quite languid, the director, Adam Gierasch, who also did 2009's Night of the Demons remake, creates a beautiful atmosphere helped by a moody camera technique which lingers on the characters probably longer than it should and a gorgeous soulful blues jazz score befitting the New Orleans setting. The film's overall impact is of a haunting and hallucinatory world. A place where you'd like to grab a bourbon but perhaps not linger too long.

Don't be put off by the fact Vinnie Jones is used in the publicity materials to the point of over exposure. He's in it, and playing the usual Jones villain, but he's used sparingly and although slightly cliched he's a superior villain with a deliciously nasty streak.

Although not a straight down the line horror, the film has enough grotesque imagery, including a dark sub plot involving sex trafficking, and gruesome originality to satisfy most gore hounds.

Frankie Teardrop first reviewed and recommended this film way back in November 2014. Listen to Frankie, even if you don't listen to me! Fractured comes recommended.

Striptease (1996)

Coming just a year after the much vilified Showgirls, Striptease didn't stand much of a chance as it's essentially seen as several strip club sequences with a story thrown round them much like
1987's dreary Stripped to Kill was.

In reality it's actually far better than that description and is only really let down by some drastic shifts in tone throughout. It seems director Andrew Bergman has tonal problems, as his most appreciated film, Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), also suffers from the same thing in my opinion.

The story of a single unemployed mum who gets a job in a strip club to make ends meet as she tries to gain custody of her child from it's alcoholic father is a typical Hollywood drama that could play out on Channel 5 on a Monday afternoon were it not for the frequent nudity. However when you add in the political subplot of murder and corruption which begins when Burt Reynolds US senator accidently kills a punter in the club then things get a bit sticky. Reynold's senator is practically a comedy relief character as is Ving Rhames night club bouncer and there are plenty of laughs to be had. It's just when Armande Assante's cop arrives to investigate and CSI's Paul Guilfoyle starts offing people without the senator's knowledge that the tone shifts from scene to scene. Long strip sequences followed by beatings and tear jerk melodrama don't really go hand in hand.

It's all nicely acted though. Burt Reynolds is clearly having a blast as is Rhames, but the film is most famous for star Demi Moore's nudity. It seems she'd just had a new boob job and wanted to show them off. Many people don't rate silicon implants but i think she looks really good in this film. Super toned body wise, she makes for a decent dancer and in my eyes comes across more convincing than Elizabeth Berkely did in Showgirls (Although that might not be hard). Interestingly, one of the dancers, Rena Riffel, is in both this and Showgirls, typecast? Probably. Big breast lovers will want to keep an eye out for Pandora Peaks as she does her routine, although it's unlikely you'll miss em'.

Striptease is difficult to recommend as it's sort of good and a bit rubbish at the same time. I suppose the best way to describe it is as a guilty pleasure.

As I haven't seen Fractured, and the last time I saw Striptease was probably at least a decade ago, they are both now on my Lovefilm rental queue.

I saw The Hateful Eight a couple of days ago and intended on writing something sooner, but have been cracking on with university work. There is probably little point in talking about the plot, so I'll just limit this to my opinion.

This is clearly a vanity piece for Tarantino who wanted to make a permanent impact on American cinema by making the first 70 mm 'Roadshow' film since the mid-1960s (I believe the 1966 film Khartoum directed by Basil Dearden was the last) and, to be absolutely fair, the film is beautifully shot and I wish I had a screen bigger than 42 inches to see the few landscape scenes again – Cineworld boycott meant I couldn't see it at the cinema – and it is incredibly well designed, blocked, and staged. It has also been designed within an inch of its life, from just about every strand of facial hair to the costumes and the interiors of the stagecoach and Minnie's Haberdashery (including props) are wonderful to watch. The choice of actors and, in Ennio Morricone, composer, also smacks of a director in full control of everything except the script leak which threatened to derail the entire project.

As with Tarantino's previous films done this way, the chapter format makes for an episodic viewing which contains both good and bad. I can't remember the numbers or names at the moment, but a couple of them were overly wordy and a bit dull, whereas the second half of the one in which Samuel L Jackson takes centre stage is crackling with tension and has great dynamics between the characters. However, I could have done without the unnecessary (and uncredited) narration by Tarantino with an indistinguishable accent.

Even with the nearly three-hour running time, you are left not knowing much about many of the characters, with only Chris Mannix and Marquis Warren given decent, though spurious and potentially fictional, backgrounds, so the characters aren't even as well-developed as in Reservoir Dogs, which has a running time of just over half the length!

Like I said, there is some really good stuff there, and Morricone's score is worthy of all the praise and awards which went his way, and some of the acting is excellent, but I'm certainly not in a rush to watch it a second time.